


an addiction to blood (drink it up)

by seinmit



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, CIA fuckery, Character is a Vampire, Gen, Killing of Civilian Non-Combatants, Major Character Injury, Pre-Canon, Revenge, Self-Harm / Scarification, lots of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21654187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: Each scar on Erik's body meant a body full of blood, but he didn't drink all of it.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	an addiction to blood (drink it up)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adspexi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adspexi/gifts).



> Based on the song [Blood of the Fang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9EsHbqmjN4), by clipping. The song samples/references a great/weird old movie Ganja & Hess (1973), which is where I got the vampire thing and the opening quote from.

_By the Christians it is written that in the black Myrthian age  
There existed an addiction to blood among its people  
Thousands of slaves were bled to death  
But murdered in such a way that the slaves could not die_

When you did enough killing, eventually the world pushed back. 

Erik staggered away from the target's home, hand pressed hard into his side. He could feel the pain radiate from his gut and he imagined the bullet tearing his tissue to shreds, but he wasn’t bleeding much. If he’d still been alive, he would have likely already bled out. 

But he was a made man and the government wasn’t done with him yet. So it just fucking _hurt_. 

It hurt and with every drop of blood spilt, he felt himself growing weaker. He needed that blood, even if not the normal way, and he could smell it—minerals and salt, and the inhuman part of him wanted to lean down and suck it off each individual piece of gravel. 

But it wouldn’t be enough--a wound like this couldn’t be healed with a closed system. 

He got a good hundred meters away from the compound and slumped against a shed. He smelled barnyard. These insurgents always were a strange mix of Gucci and goats—the wives he’d killed had been wearing designer shoes, the only part of them with personality underneath the black abaya. 

Maybe it was the blood loss, but he could see those shoes—pink, and green, and one pair that was glittery, like a little girl’s butterfly clips, even if it likely cost a couple thousand American. They’d died all in a row, gathered in the back of the house in a futile attempt to hide from him. They’d died last, when he was already injured—there was no point killing the unarmed first, not when he had the bodyguards to worry about. The three women had been huddled against the far wall in a pantry and they’d begged him, pleaded with him—not many children, only two little ones. The boss-man’s swimmers must not be much. 

When they were dead, he had to pull down their veils to take pictures. The free world needed to know what civilians they were going to deny killing. 

He left their bodies laid out behind him, veils back down and covering their faces. The only skin that was visible was their ankles and those shoes, lined up, like the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. 

Fuck, he was losing it. 

His hands fumbled with his radio, leaving smears of blood only perceptible as a glistening on the black plastic. 

"Exfil," he grunted and then put it aside before they had a chance to confirm. 

With the same clumsiness, he got his ka-bar out of its sheath and used it to slice through his own belt and the tattered remains of his body armor. Normally he’d wait to do this, but it felt like it needed doing now.

His skin had a greenish undertone that wasn’t good and the edges of the wound were ripped flesh, like someone had been impatient with the shittiest birthday present in the world. He could see inside himself and he was pink and red, with flashes of white fat. 

He didn’t look away. He used the knife to prick ten more methodical dots. There wasn’t much space left and this process wasn’t completed in a single sitting, but he could start now. Three wives, two kids, four bodyguards, and the target that had the bad sense to be obvious about his insurgency. The reason for the season. 

When he made the dots, he started with the first one and carved out more pieces of himself to mark those deaths. His body would heal with keloid scars—it always did—and he’d work these marks until they were indelible evidence of what he’d done in the long arc of his mission. 

He heard the helicopter as he was working. He didn’t look up. His grip strength was uncommonly weak and he felt like if he lost his focus, he wouldn’t be able to keep hold of the knife. 

It was only when he felt the breeze of the blades and the roar of the helicopter right in front of him that he started to pull himself to his feet. No need to be subtle, when they were in the middle of nowhere and everyone was dead. 

He climbed his way into the back of the Chinook. The only person there was his handler—a pasty white guy named Brad of all things. He had the thickness of a guy who’d been buff at one point, but Erik felt nothing but contempt for him at the best of times. 

Now, when Brad smiled at him and watched him climb up, Erik felt his lips twist into a snarl on their own accord. He snagged the ear protection and pulled it on. 

The back closed and the helicopter drifted up again. 

"You’re wounded," Brad said, tinny through the radio. "How long will something like that take to heal for you?" 

He had a clinical curiosity in his tone. 

"I need to eat," Erik said. "Or I won't heal for shit." 

Brad looked surprised. "Why didn't you feed on the target?" 

_Feed_. The word infuriated him, a hot flush of rage that was almost indistinguishable from humiliation. They’d made him like this, when one of their best snipers had the gall to go and die on them—they’d drained him of life and left him dead-but-walking, a half-life of being their fucking weapon. Of course he didn’t _eat_. He _fed_. 

The emotion was enough that Erik dragged himself to his feet, looming over Brad on the other side of the transport. Brad looked mildly confused. 

Erik’s hand wasn’t clumsy when he slashed Brad’s throat, the gape of his red insides stark against his white skin. He followed the knife with his teeth, tearing into the wound and widening it with his mouth. 

The blood tasted rich and salty, like good meat, like the best fucking steak in the world. He drank, light-headed with hunger and the nauseating-famished feeling of needing sustenance. With each gulped mouthful, he felt stronger. 

He was stronger. This was the blood he was meant to drink and it sung in his veins. It didn’t make him anyone other than who he was, but he could feel it suffuse his flesh. It wasn’t enough to heal him entirely, but it was a start. 

He’d kill the pilot when they landed and there’d be a few more people on the forward base. He’d glut himself, knit his skin back together, and then he’d find more prey. 

When Brad was nothing more than useless, grey meat, Erik let him thump to the ground. It was inaudible under the deafening white noise around him. 

He sat back down and went back to working on the scars, adding a new one for Brad. 

He considered adding some preemptive ones for the imminent kills, but it didn’t feel right. Before he marked his body with credit, he had to spill the blood.


End file.
